1. Field of the Invention
This invention concerns a lightweight, durable, convenient, practical, versatile and efficient insect monitoring system and trap for capturing crawling and flying adult insect or larvae, in particular of small beetles. The trap is a two-piece snap on plastic unit which contains an adhesive to trap the insects and food or pheromone attractant to lure the insects to the trap. The trap is useful for protection of stored animal and plant products.
2. Background of the Invention
Small insects such as various species of beetles pose various economic problems for stored animal and plant products. Beetles, such as for example the cigarette beetle, Lasioderma serricorne are not only the leading parasite of dry leaf tobacco but also a typical pest which feeds on dry food such as coffee, cocoa, flour, corn meal, dried peppers, dried noodles and the grain in storage. The other beetles such as warehouse beetleTrogoderma variabile, and khapra beetle, Trogoderma granarium, confused flour beetle, Tribolium confusum and redflour beetle Tribolium castaneum, sawtoothed grain beetle Oryzaephilus surinamensis and merchant grain beetle Oryzaephilus mercator, are all equally harmful.
It would therefore be extremely important and advantageous to have available a convenient and durable insect trap having specific means to attract and capture the insect. The trap could be also used as a monitoring system to determine the degree of insect infestation. The trap would preferably contain an attractant specific to the individual insect species which infest the specific product intended for human consumption. Such products as, for example, dry milk, flour, nuts, coffee, tea, dry foods, and processed cereals are commodities that must not, under any circumstances, contain living or dead insects or their larvae.
Many techniques for prevention of insect infestation of these commodities were devised recently. The methods for controlling stored commodity insects include treatments with pathogens, radiations, high-pressure treatment, the use of various chemicals and chemical regulators and recently developed insect sex pheromones and other behavior modifying semiochemicals which lure the insect to certain places. Various insect traps have been devised which lure the insects, poison the insects, suffocate the insects and/or remove insects from the stored products using any of the above means.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,093 describes the feeding station for vermin which allows for ingress of the vermin to the trap to feed on a poisoned bait held at a central portion of the trap. The trap has side openings for the entrance of the insect and for an exit of the insect after it feeds on the bait. Presumably, after feeding on the bait the insects eventually die due to poisoning. However, the use of such trap for stored product insects would not be acceptable for protection of stored products because the insects would be poisoned. Consequently, whether alive or dead it would contain in its body the poison which could be dangerous and harmful to human beings. Also, the insect presumably would leave the trap and could conceivably return to the stored product and die there. That would not only contaminate the food with poison but it would also spoil the stored product and prevent it from using as a human food. The feeding station of U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,093 is thus completely unsuitable for use an as insect trap in protection of stored products.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,581,845 describes the suffocation type insect trap with pheromone and/or grain oils as attractants. The described trap is made of corrugated cardboard. The corrugations, which are oriented diagonally, form the spacing tunnels which tunnels are used as the ingress entrance for the insects. The corrugation tunnels lead to the central portion of the trap where the pheromone is stored over a cup or pitfall and a grain oil is contained in the cup. The insect is attracted toward the pheromone and food oil lure, and while it tries to get to it, it falls into the pitfall. The primary disadvantage of this trap is that it is made of the corrugated paper cardboard and that the paper corrugations form the only means for insect entrance into the trap. Since the cardboard is not very pressure resistant, in many instances it can get crushed or smashed so that the ingress of the insect into the trap is prevented. That is particularly true when these traps are packed, transported, stored and used under various conditions. Moreover, when such trap is stored and used in humid conditions it may lose its form and shape, the corrugation forming glue may get moist, deactivate and collapse and not only the ingress of the insects under these conditions may be prevented but the pheromone lure would not be effective. The paper trap is also susceptible to destruction by the insect which feeds on paper and/or glue.
Many insects like to hide in the corrugations and, due to behavioral preferences, avoid the cup. To obtain an accurate census, the insects must be knocked out of the corrugations thus consuming extra time and possibly destroying the trap.
The current invention avoids all these disadvantages in that it provides a lightweight, durable, convenient, versatile, practical, cheap and efficient monitoring system and insect trap.